How to make the perfect ganache

If you love chocolate, look no further.

I love chocolate, I guess most people do, and today there are so many brands and flavours out there. Chocolate is perfect to use when making for example cookies, frostings and ganache.

Buy and use chocolate of the highest quality you can afford, the taste of the finished ganache (or whatever you are making) will reflect the taste of the chocolate.

Ganache looks amazing when drizzled over a simple bundt cake, as shown below.

How to make dark chocolate ganache (53-70% cocoa solids):

Dark chocolate ganache 

• 1 part dark chocolate
• 1 part heavy or double cream

Chop the chocolate and put it into a bowl.

Heat the cream until boiling point, then add to the bowl of chocolate in two or three additions.

Using a hand whisk, stir well after each addition.

Let the mixture cool until 107 °F (42 °C) before mixing with a hand blender until smooth and fluffy. (I picked up this trick from the Olympic medal winning pastry chef Bernhard Azinger.)

If you are not using the ganache straight away, leave it as is for a couple of hours, or put it in the refrigerator after cooling.

When you are ready to use the ganache, heat it in the microwave for a few seconds to get it back to the right temperature and consistency.

Ganache can be stored in a cool room up to 1 week, in the refrigerator up to 1 month, or in the freezer up to 3 months.

It’s the perfect frosting for a cake, but don’t wait too long as it gets more difficult to work with the longer you wait.

Another great thing about ganache is that you can add all kinds of flavourings. You could make a raspberry ganache, just replace half the cream with raspberry purée. You could put a tea bag in the cream the day before, allowing the flavour to infuse overnight. This way you can add the flavours of your favourite tea, and considering the amount of varieties – the possibilities are endless.

I highly recommend this tea (WS Hot Cinnamon Spice) from Harney & Sons, it’s my absolute favourite and the flavour is just amazing.

I hope you have learned something new about making ganache. If you like posts like this – let me know, and I’ll do more. Please let me know if you have any other requests about future blog posts.

Next week I’ll be back with some advice on how to make the perfect frosting: a stable frosting that tastes amazing, and what you’ll have to do to make it extra white and hence perfect to transform into a pastel-coloured frosting.

I hope you’ll all have a great evening.

Hugs from me to you.